"Darren Garrison" wrote in message
...
I planted some Cana tubers in the spring of 2004. Originally, I planted
them around 8 or 10 inches
deep. Today I went out to trim them down for the winter, and found that
in several of them, there
were large branched tubers with growth points on the surface or breaking
through to the surface.

Is it normal for Cana tubers to migrate upwards like that? Would the
original tubers still be "down
there" below the surface ones? I'm concerned about them freezing out now.


This is completely normal. I have spent the last two days lifting canna
rhizomes ( and have about three days to go). They tend to multiply like
crazy. It isn't unusual for them to expand by a factor of three or four in
a single year with good growing conditions. Of course, the ones you really
like will barely survive!

The original rhizome will be just where you placed it. However, over a year
or two, the mother rhizome will eventually die. That is why it is good to
lift and divide them every year or two even in warm climates. That allows
you to cut away the dead parts and replant, eliminating overcrowding and
dead zones.

If you are in a marginal area, like zone 7, it would be a good idea to
heavily mulch them. In zone 6 I lift them although some people have luck
leaving them in the ground. The times have left them, they always die.